Syria: Obama's Climb-down - Congress Vote On All Out War

Obama is now in a catch 22. The House Republicans demand answers to detailed questions about the war Obama wants to wage that he will not be able to give. 80% of U.S. citizens want Obama to go to Congress before waging war. But if he calls Congress back from vacations to vote on a war resolution he will risk, like Cameron, utter defeat. If he does not call back Congress and proceeds with a strike he may face impeachment. He can of course stand down on the issue but will then be damaged goods in international affairs and a lame duck at home.

So Obama has chosen the first path, to ask Congress for a vote. He did so with some more heart bleeding nonsensical rhetoric. If Congress rejects the war Obama will not be able to wage it as that would very likely lead to impeachment.

Obama may have done this climb-down with two silent hopes in his mind:

he either doesn't want war and hopes that Congress saves him from the stupid red-line trap that he set for himself and that led to the false-flag incident on a Damascus suburb - or

he wants war and hopes that AIPAC with its phenomenal lobbying power will bring Congress in line and make it consent to wage another war for the sole benefit of Zionism.

Here is my hope that the people of the United States, even though they mostly despise the current Congress, will do all they can to prevent another U.S. war in the Middle East. Please, starting today, bother your Congressmen and Senators every day over the next ten days and urgently press them to vote "No!" on the upcoming war resolution. Keep in mind that if Congress would vote "Yes!" the war will NOT be limited to few air strikes or cruise missile shots.

If Congress votes for the war, it will - no matter what they will tell you before - become an all out very deadly conflagration over all the Middle East including Iran. The resolution would just be interpreted to mean whatever the president wants it to mean. There would then be lots of U.S. boots on the ground and many more people would die than in the war the U.S. waged on Iraq.

I find hmm's quizzical style irritating, but on this question he is absolutely right. Don Bacon & 'bevin' seem to have absorbed nothing from marxism except the authoritarian manner. As I pointed out last night, my time, this morning for you amerikans, WINEP is both 'think tank' and 'advocacy agency', plus also a revolving door for administration mid-east hawks. In general, it is simply wrong to distinguish 'think tanks' from 'advocacy agencies'. It is just as true of AEI as it is of WINEP that 'scholars and fellows' (as they call their propagandists in a very obvious pseudo academic deception) will pen warmongering editorials and make warmongering TV appearances. There's nothing academic or scholarly about 'think tanks', despite their ridiculous nomenclature of scholars and fellows. If you want to watch a video that collects WINEP editorials and TV appearances, about Syria as much as about Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, here's one. One other thing: guest77, your deliberately writing 'rogue' as 'rouge' is just about to drive me insane.

One has to imagine the neocons/Israeli's are crapping their pants over Syria's impending defeat of the foreign fighters that have flooded into the country.

Unless something dramatic happens to change the situation:

1. Syria, though suffering severe damage, is going to come out of this attempted destruction by outside powers with a military that has gone though an amazing transformation into a world class fighting force filled with personnel that are battle hardened and will be armed with that experience for the next 10, 20, or more years.

2. Hezbollah likewise, has large numbers of their personnel now with battle hardened experience from all out street to street warfare. That type of experience is priceless.

3. Closer cooperation and coordination between Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran from their efforts together over the past few years fighting a common enemy. And possibly even Iraq to a lesser extent.

I have to imagine there are tens of thousands of battle hardened Syrian and Hezbollah military just itching for some payback to Israel. Hezbollah has supposedly been rehearsing/preparing for a rush south across the border ever since they beat the crap out of the IDF back in 2006. I would assume the goal would be to take out as much of the anti-air/anti-missile sites and systems. Followed by Syrian and Iranian all out missile attacks. Followed by door to door combat with the most experienced urban fighting force int the world, Hezbollah.

The Israelis and AIPAC must know this is the gigantic risk of getting the US to attack Syria. If it spirals out of control to the point of becoming an existential threat to the Syrian government, Hezbollah will have no choice but to act or face being completely isolated and unable to be reequipped and certain future or even near term absolute defeat by the next Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Ernesto Fuentes was a former Second Class Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy from 2007-2012 and served on the USS Fitzgerald and the USS The Sullivans. He is a March Forward! organizer in Los Angeles and is working to build anti-war actions locally.

"To my fellow sailors, shipmates and service members on active duty,

Many of you are now in the Mediterranean Sea near Syria to be used to carry out strikes against the country. 91 percent of the American public opposes these strikes. The Obama administration has failed to produce the “evidence” it says would justify them.

Do not be fooled into yet another war based on lies in the Middle East. The events that came to pass in Iraq and Afghanistan go to show that "defending freedom and democracy around the world," as the Sailor's Creed so wrongfully suggests is just a scheme to defend the interests of the rich at our expense. Syria—which is the only remaining country in the Arab World that is independent of Wall Street—is a huge prize for the oil and defense industries. But the billionaires who will profit don’t send their own children. They send us.

What we learned from the Iraq war in particular is that the U.S. government will fabricate intelligence, lies to our faces, and create a false story about “protecting civilians” to cover-up their true motives.

Don't be a part of a war machine that kills innocent lives and separates entire families. Tomahawks and MK 45 rounds kill indiscriminately.

Do not be fooled into yet another endless watch, duty day, sleepless night and deployment in support of a corrupt system that constantly puts you in harm’s way. I ask you, is it really worth it?

I enlisted on July 20th, 2007 right out of high school in the hopes that I could peruse an education and travel the world through the Navy. The longer I was in, the more I realized that the community I was exposed to in the Navy was so far removed from the everyday lives of American civilians. Military spending always goes up. I was surrounded by billions of dollars’ worth of equipment, while schools have to fundraise for supplies and scholarships, whole cities were going bankrupt, and students struggled to pay their loans. I realized then that the system in place had left me no choice but to join the military. It was an illusion of choice when the reality is that more and more of us join to escape economic hardship. Then we are used to carry out missile strikes against other struggling people just like us all over the globe. It is a cycle that continues to fuel the war machine.

To me, patriotism is doing what you think is right for your country, not blindly following its government. It means that when we receive orders from corrupt high-ranking officers to launch strikes against Syria, against the will of the American people and against the will of the Syrian people, that it is our duty to refuse to carry them out.
Getting out of the military was the best decision I ever made, because the military tried to make me into a tool of oppression for other people around the world—but failed.

If I were at sea now, ordered to carry out this new war, I would refuse. You can too. Disobey the bogus orders to launch a new war. Refuse deployments and re-enlistments. Come home to your families and fight the real battle that has been waged by the government against its own people in the form of unemployment, poor education, high interest rates for college students, police brutality and the erosion of our civil liberties.

You have to crazy to think Hezbollah would just sit by and let a bunch of crazed Sunni jihadists take over control of Syria as the result of limited US attack turning into an all out bombing campaign completely focused on destroying the Syrian government.

Hezbollah would be faced with:

1. Israel ready to attack from the south

2. Sunni Gulf dictatorships eager to pour billions more to carry the fight across the Syrian border to Lebanon and attempt to destroy Hezbollah with their mercenaries and jihadists in Syria

3. US naval power directly off the coast

4. And to a lesser extent Turkey to the north

The is no way in hell Hezbollah would just sit idly by and let their link to Iran be taken out.

Hezbollah has supposedly been positioning people all across the northern border of Israel in preparation for such an attack. Just look at how close Syria came to defeat from a bunch of thugs, criminals, and crazies paid for by the Gulf dictatorships before the SAA managed to recover and start turning the tide. Israel would be faced with a guerrilla war not with a bunch clowns like the Syrians faced but the top urban warfare force in the world backed by the 400-500 thousand combined SAA and NDF forces that are increasingly being freed up as they finish off the dwindling number of FSA held sections of Syria.

Why would one be worried about the price obama would have to pay at aipac? The whole zamerican political establishment is driven by one single task: To do whatever aipac wants to be done, when and the way aipac wants it done.

Cynically, by doing the dirty work for israel, zusa has managed to become the most hated country on this planet.

One aspect that most seem to ignore is Iran. Knowing that it's on the zusa list of states to be destroyed right after Syria, an attack on Syia is bound to bear way more and way uglier consequences than the zato-tards can handle.

In sum, the Assad regime needs to understand that U.S. attacks may not unfold in a linear or predictable fashion. Put another way, Washington should prevent Assad from concluding that he can selectively trade occasional CW attacks for limited U.S. strikes -- a ratio the regime may be willing to bear. Instead, Assad must be convinced that any U.S. strike is the opening move of a broader campaign that only the regime has the power to arrest by changing its behavior.

Translation: It is "all in" for the US. For propaganda reasons they all talk about Chemical Weapons attack. It won't be Chemical Weapons attacks. Assad has the missiles and rockets to reach any point in Israel from the neighbouring border fronting the width. Israel has a width of 85 miles at the widest point.
There is no "limited strike" option with an escalation of retaliation. The limited strike option depends on Syria and Iran not retaliating. This is far from garanteed when Syria and Iran regimes conclude it is existential for them - as it obviously is.
Obama has made clear he wants Assad out, he won't be able to convince him now that a compromise is possible.
Syria's and Israel's strength are clear. It is mutual destruction with nothing much in between. So if Syria begins to retaliate the US have to stop it immediately - which they won't be able to do fast enough for Israel.
All this is known.
They are playing a game of chicken.
Saudi Arabia has never fought a war in its existence. What will happen if Iran decides to shoot across the Strait of Hormuz is anybody's guess. They have plenty of time to play an escalation game there. It will de facto block the Strait of Hormuz.
One of the complete unknowns are Iran's, Syria's and Russia's capabilities in electronic warfare. And what they got from Snowden.
Obama already has miscalculated as he seems to have thought threats would get him anywhere in negotiations.

Surely the oil crowd and the military-industrial complex are incredibly important in US politics. The problem in the current situation is that almost all of the bad power centers in the country want war. The only thing restraining them has been the ability of the Syrian alliance to cause incredible pain to ZATO. That's it. No need for discussions about minutiae in how votes occur or this or that false flag or public sentiment about Iraq. It's all about force. The latest scam with Obama promising to attack was just a trick to try to bribe and threaten countries and individuals. It didn't work, so they backed down. Now they will try other methods. Demons don't change; they just die. You can, however, convince them that fresh blood is somewhere else. It would be very nice if the Saudis would send their lunatics to destroy Qatar.

"You have to crazy to think Hezbollah would just sit by and let a bunch of crazed Sunni jihadists take over control of Syria as the result of limited US attack turning into an all out bombing campaign completely focused on destroying the Syrian government."

Berkeley Rowan, if you consider my gentle rebuke of hmm to be authoritarian, it is of no consequence.
As to your remarks about "marxism" I am at a loss to explain them unless you suffer from a compulsion to drop hints that you have read, understood and feel greatly inspired by Karl Marx. I hope you get over it.

Your blind hatred of Israel leads you to some really illogical analysis. Why in the world would Israel want to spur Obama to bomb Syria? First of all, US attacks could quite possibly lead to retalitory strikes on Israel by Syria/Hezbollbah. Second of all, no one can predict if the end result of the US strikes would be to weaken or strengthen the Assad regime. Thirdly, even
if Israel believed it could could predict the result, Israel has no interest in either the weakening or strengthening of the Iranian/Hezbollash backed Assad regime vis a vis the Sunni jihadist rebels. Both are hostile enemies. Lastly,Israel has had no problem striking on its own at Syrian attempts to illegally transfer advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

@47
So your plan is to ignore your elected reps and just write angry comments on MoA? That is idiotic.

Politicians need to be coerced into doing the right thing and they are receptive to public opinion when it is ringing their phones off the hook and threatening to hurt their plans for reelection. That ain’t naive, it’s fact. The supporters of Israel understand this and they can rely on their people to pressure the politicians by making calls and writing e-mails.

Keep on thinking you can change the world by posting internet comments and see what it gets you. Opening your mouth and expressing an opinion to the guy who represents you in Congress is the basis for any sort of political power. Don’t be an idiot and dismiss it.

No time to read all the comments just now (no internet at home, alas), but is this "climb down" actually a means to use this "emergency" to get yet another huge, broad, open-ended authorization for More War?

Trust not what Obama says; know only what he actually does and then make sure to evaluate any future statements as weasely and likely lies.